ATLANTA The Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) has hired InnLink LLC to create a customized portal solution, similar to an OTA, to facilitate online booking across nearly 100,000 U.S. hotels.
The new online reservation system will include both AAHOA member and non-member properties and will be accessible to anyone with Internet access. The portal is being designed with certain features to improve and expedite the guest booking experience, including customizable property search criteria and the ability to book multiple hotel stays under a single guest portfolio. This is believed to be the first U.S.-based online distribution platform capable of utilizing this so-called “shopping cart” technology. Hoteliers will be given access to more comprehensive customer data pre-stay, providing for preemptive customer communication and upsell opportunities.
“Developing an online portal that would truly benefit the hoteliers was one of AAHOA’s top objectives for the past year,” says AAHOA Chairman ChandraKant “C.K.” Patel. “Considering that our members own 40% of the hotels in the country, it seemed only logical for AAHOA to develop a portal that would allow us to control that inventory of rooms.”
Development and beta testing is under way and the portal is expected to go live later this year.